That pale blue elephant in the cosmos

Carl Sagan's pale blue dot is a masterpiece in communication.  It's an unparalleled compilation of paragraphs that puts everything into it's place and makes you realize that we are nothing more but certainly, nothing less, than a species out of many species on a microscopic planet in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe.  And that universe, perhaps, might be something even more insignificant in the grand scheme of things, in parallel bars in a gym on a microscopic planet in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe and so on.

And what Carl is describing, is just a view from a relatively close position, in our solar system.  The pale blue dot.

Don't take all this from me, I am just telling you what I understand from being alive for a short time, and I myself, am just one of a species as previously described.  I wouldn't take my word for anything, I mean, why would I?

But my point is, there are people amongst us, there are people that have lived before us, that have thought about these things for the first time.  They are true visionaries, they are essentially our gods, for want of a better definition.

Carl Sagan, was just a human being.  He brushed his teeth, like you and I.  He brushed them because his diet, which was normal, consisted of sugars that were added to his food, which caused his teeth to decay.  Brushing them helped.  He lived in a human body, at a certain time, of that he had no choosing, and so he brushed his teeth, probably before he went to bed, and perhaps, after his breakfast in the morning.  Just like you and I.

Carl Sagan brushed his teeth twice a day.  He also explored the cosmos in his mind.  And he also came to terms with the fact that he, as well as exploring the vast, perhaps, wonderful cosmos, in his mind, he had to brush his teeth twice a day, because of his diet, which was normal.  Carl Sagan was a teeth brushing visionary.

What Carl Sagan was not, was a violent man, from what I understand.  But I suspect, that, perhaps, Carl Sagan experienced violent thoughts and emotions.  We all do, from time to time.  But would you define Carl Sagan as a violent man?  Of course you wouldn't.

I am really trying to say something here.  What I am trying to say, really, is that I don't know much about Carl Sagan, or about science, or about our place in the universe, or what, indeed, a universe really is.  What I am really getting at, is that I am quite a big R.E.M fan, and this blog is really a tribute to the R.E.M song, Fall On Me.  I ask you to re-read it, with that in mind.  I think you will be surprised.

Why I deleted Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines from my Spotify Playlist

Recently, I realized I had some pretty awful songs on my main spotify playlist, and I decided to do some cleaning up, putting it on random (it has around 1200 songs on there) and deleting the ones I felt had ran their course and were taking up space on my iphone.  I have had spotify for around 2 years now, and during that time, I think, my tastes have changed.

This would be a chore, I realized, though perhaps not one as bad as sorting out all your receipts if you are self employed, or going through a dead relatives possessions, deciding which ones to keep and which ones to sell on e-bay.

I pressed shuffle play, and sat back to see what would come up first.  It was Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines.

I remember liking this song, with the Michael Jacksonesque whoops, the very danceable beat and Pharrell Williams all over it.  My friends liked it.  Everyone liked it.  This song was sexy, and cool, I thought.  Everyone thought.  Hey hey hey!

Of course, it didn't take long for people to realize, wait a minute, this song is promoting a pretty male sided, sexist, horrific and rapey viewpoint, but who cares, we are having fun, and goddam, that's a funky tune, and goddam, I really don't want to think about feminism in my music, it's just music, it's just a bit of fun.  I admit, I was in that group, and for shame.

 Time passes, as it does.  Summer turns to Autumn, Autumn turns to Winter and so on, and some things are forgotten, like summer songs.  But after a while, a song like this, a song with a tune so catchy, is going to resurface, and lo, Sauron's Blurred Lines resurfaced this summer, like we should have known it would.  But, it came back to heated vengeance, and rightly so.  What was once a LOL summer song, became, WTF is this, this is nothing new, plus, WTF is this guy saying?

Cue a deserved, much needed and thank goodness backlash.  Robin Thicke probably can't even go to the shops to buy a pair of binoculars to spy on women in the privacy of their own homes without being heckled.  And, rightly so.

So the reason why I deleted Robin Thicke's Blurred lines from my playlist was simply because, this song is just so not cool.  Feminism made Robin Thicke so very uncool.  And do you know why?  Because Feminism is just so fucking cool.  The best, most informative, funny writers nowadays are all feminists.  I don't have any examples, because, simply, if a writer isn't a feminist, then the writer isn't informative, funny or cool. 

But, actually, I didn't really delete this song from my playlist for those reasons, although I wished I did, I deleted it because I was goddam sick of hearing this song and it meant nothing to me emotionally.  I can very much look past a songs outdated lyrics if it has been playing during a specific time in my life, or if the tune is just really really amazing.  But Blurred Lines has none of those things.

In fact, I never even deleted Blurred Lines from my spotify playlist, because, because, it wasn't even on there in the first place.  I never even heard of this song until this morning, and I decided to create a blog and make a first blog post about why I deleted it from my spotify playlist because I just wanted to type something.  In fact, I don't even have spotify, and I don't really even understand the concepts of playlists.

This blog post is about the beheading of journalists in Iraq.  I suggest you go back and read this blog again, with this in mind.